ABSTRACT
Throughout the discussion in various chapters above, we saw how the interpretation ('meaning' or 'function') of linguistic expressions always depends, at least to some extent, on the context within which those expressions are used. This is true even of the most semantic features of grammar. As Ron Langacker has observed, semantics is conventionalized pragmatics. The degree to which meaning is conventionalized may vary, and this is true for both lexicon and grammar. But in human language no meaning can be one hundred percent conventionalized, for reasons that have to do with the unpredictability and open endedness of context. Thus, a residue of context dependence in interpreting linguistic expressions always remains, regardless of how conventionalized they maybe.
